View full sizeThe Super Nice Bros. perform at the Alabama Music Box in February 2010. Noise from such live performances has sparked a lawsuit from the bar's next-door neighbors. (Press-Register file photo)

MOBILE, Alabama – The owners of the building housing The Alabama Music Box have given the bar until the end of the month to vacate the premises, potentially ending a bitter conflict with neighbors who accuse it of excessive noise.

An attorney for Diggler LLC, the landlord, asked a judge to rescind her order to soundproof the building on Dauphin Street in light of the eviction notice. But Mobile County Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart denied that Friday and set a new court hearing for Oct. 4 to see if the Music Box had actually left the building.

The judge had ordered Diggler and the Music Box to split the $5,000 cost of a sound engineer to conduct tests to determine how best to dampen the sound from the venue’s live musical performances. He is scheduled to conduct those tests on Sept. 17 and Sept. 18.

The sound expert, David Woolworth, originally had estimated the soundproofing cost to be about $30,000, but Stewart agreed to order further testing to see if the ultimate cost could be reduced.

The Music Box has been paying rent on a month-to-month basis, with no lease. The notice by Diggler LLC’s lawyer offered no reason for the eviction and gave the Music Box until Sept. 30 to remove all of its property from the building.

“You are further notified that you are instructed not to damage the building or any of its systems, including but not limited to the HVAC system, plumbing, electrical, bar fixtures and equipment and all glass doors, and windows,” the letter states. “You are further instructed to leave the building in good repair and as clean as possible.”

Buzz Jordan, a lawyer for the Music Box, declined to comment about whether his clients intend to seek a new location or fight the eviction. If the bar remains past Sept. 30, Digger would have to go to court to seek an order enforcing the eviction.

“They haven’t left yet,” he said. “They’re kind of taking it one day at a time.”

Rick Courtney, an attorney for plaintiffs Jeffrey and Patsy Jordan, expressed skepticism about whether the Music Box actually would leave.

“They’ve been saying for a year that they’re moving. They never do,” he said.

Throughout the lawsuit, filed in 2011 by the Jordans and the company of bankruptcy lawyer Irvin Grodsky, the Music Box and its landlord seemed to be on the same page.

“I think they were until it started to cost them money,” Courtney said.

Mobile has no sound ordinance for the downtown area, but the plaintiffs argued that the music was so loud that it constituted a public nuisance. The judge has tried to fashion a solution that would both allow the bar to remain open and accommodate the plaintiffs.

That has proved difficult.

Stewart has imposed a series of restrictions on the bar’s operating hours, which the Jordans have alleged the Music Box has repeatedly violated. At one court hearing, Courtney played a series of recordings his clients made from their apartment to demonstrated the noise level.

Courtney said Friday that the situation has not improved.

“My people still can’t spend the night there on the weekends,” he said.